Does this 7" tablet go down well?

Our Verdict

For

Decent price

Google services

Against

A poor phone

A slow tablet

When is a seven-inch tablet not a tablet? When it's strangely labelled a smartphone, like ViewSonic's ViewPad 7.

At this small size it's not really competing with the iPad scale of tablets, more the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Tab. Like those two devices, the ViewPad 7 is running Android, this time in 2.2 trim.

But the strange thing is that ViewSonic is marketing this as a smartphone rather than as a tablet. Admittedly, you can slap a SIM card into the top of the ViewPad and it will operate like a phone, but you'll get a bit of the Dom Joly's should you use it in the street.

We've actually already seen this device under a different name. Like the ViewPad 10, this seven-inch edition has simply been picked up lock, stock and barrel by ViewSonic from an OEM manufacturer and renamed. In its previous guise it was the Linx Commtiva N700, a £330 tablet that got a decent four stars.